


Weathering the Storm

by magicianlogician12



Series: You, Me, and the Sea [1]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25291390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicianlogician12/pseuds/magicianlogician12
Summary: Ismirah Shadeweaver, formerly the notorious dread-captain of the Five Seas, is a new addition to the Alliance's privateer ranks--one of her missions takes her to Lor'danel...just in time to watch Teldrassil burn.
Series: You, Me, and the Sea [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1832245
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Weathering the Storm

“Thunder’s rolling in, Captain.”

At the navigator’s wheel, Miri looks up at the sound of Elanarel’s voice, coming from the deck just below where she stands herself. With one hand clutching a spoke of the wheel and the other shielding her sight from the rapidly-dwindling sunlight, Miri squints her single remaining eye and spots the stormclouds on the horizon.

“Far enough away that it won’t stop our approach to Lor’danel.” Miri declares after a moment’s consideration, and pulls her compass out of her vest pocket, checking their bearing. “Grab everyone who’s below deck and tell them to get up here so we can get ready for docking.”

Elanarel sketches a mock-salute in Miri’s general direction before departing, and Miri releases a sigh as she turns the wheel, adjusting their course.

If someone had told Miri just a few short months ago that she’d be making her living running menial goods for the Alliance as one of their privateer lackeys, she’d have laughed in their face at best, gutted them on the spot at worst. She wasn’t exactly the type to sit at someone’s beck and call, and it had been her greatest strength and her greatest weakness for the thousand years she had remained a terror upon the seas.

After Umbric, though, and after  _ Kyrian _ , things had changed, and for the first time since her boots had first landed upon the decks of the  _ Silent Tide _ , a thousand years ago, Captain Ismirah Shadeweaver, dread-captain of the Five Seas, had been brought to heel.

Mostly, Miri regards the future as something she would handle when it became relevant–she has no means to predict it, only the means to react, and that approach, while reckless at times, has served her well enough. Now, though, her future, and her crew’s, by extension, is intangible and formless as smoke, yet just as choking to the unaware.

Smoke… _ smoke… _

_ Why could she smell smoke? _

Stiffening, Miri shakes herself out of her thoughts and reaches for the collapsible spyglass in her vest, extending it and holding it up to her eye. From this distance, she should have been able to see Lor’danel by now, or at the very least its guard tower, and if she strains her eye  _ just  _ so–

Lor’danel, shrouded by smoke, thick and somehow unnatural; even from here Miri can feel its burn in the back of her throat, and unease gives way to dread as her spyglass finds its source.

_ “Tix!” _ Miri leaps from the navigator’s deck to the stairs leading into her ship’s galley, boots hitting the wood hard enough her ankles pop under the pressure, and throws her head within the doorway.  _ “We need wind, now!” _

Along with Tixxi, of course, comes everyone else Miri had ordered Elanarel to bring up topside, and Miri takes out her spyglass again as Tixxi summons the elements to her command, standing at her ship’s bow and confirming once again what she had seen.

Teldrassil is burning.

Wind roars in Miri’s ears as the rest of her crew finds places to anchor themselves, and the  _ Tide _ leaps forward across the waves, slicing clean through the crests of murky, smoky-tinted seafoam like a blade. As they close distance, she can see the guard towers of Lor’danel burning, and her jaw clenches tight enough to hurt.

“Can’t get any more outta these sails, Cap!” Tixxi, her hands moving in rhythmic motions as she bends the elements to her will, calls across the deck. “Gonna need to reset ‘em if you wanna get some more  _ oomph  _ out of this!”

Miri glances from Lor’danel’s burning towers to the World Tree itself, across the sea, and calls across to Elanarel, holding fast to the  _ Tide _ ’s center mast. “El, take the front sail and get Tzu to help you! I’m heading up to the wheel.”

Without waiting to see if they acknowledged the order, Miri vaults over the stairs separating the deck’s surface from the navigator’s wheel, and takes hold of it, spinning it until their course changes, almost abruptly enough to send Eastland and Tzu’jai, the latter holding the end of the sail’s rope that Miri ordered him to, over the side of the ship.

Swiftly righting their approach moments before capsizing, Miri calls down, “Eastland, clear out the holds of anything we don’t need–keep our first aid and food supplies, everything else goes overboard. El, once you’re done securing that sail, help him. Tix, full speed ahead, I’ll adjust our course.  _ Move!” _ The last command is given like the crack of a whip, and her crew jumps to obey her orders.

Lor’danel is lost–even if Miri could reach them, there’s nowhere safe for her to make landfall and look for survivors, not with the whole shoreline burning. There are ships, both Alliance and Horde, fleeing the beaches, and Miri can’t help them or hinder them from here.

There is nothing from Rut’theran, though, the small, solemn little island where Darnassus’ portal waits diligently, and that concerns Miri far more.

Fire rains down from the tree, bringing with it pieces of charred wood and the smell of death and ash on the wind, and Miri strains her eye watching their approach, ensuring they won’t be struck by burning splinters from the tree, big enough to punch a cannonball-sized hole in her hull.

_ “Incoming!” _ Tixxi calls out, and Miri has only a split second to jerk the wheel around, hard enough that even with Tixxi smoothing the sudden motion, Miri’s stomach swoops with the fear of capsizing.

Rut’theran sits ahead, and now, from this distance, Miri can hear the desperate screams from within.

Above, embers and burning pieces of wood continue to fall from the tree, hissing as they sink into the waves, and their dull  _ thumps  _ of impact against the  _ Tide _ ’s hull grow more and more frequent until she spins the wheel enough to make an approximate effort at docking–a miracle the dock was even still there, honestly.

“Tix, Tzu–keep the ship here til I get back and don’t let anyone fucking hijack it on top of everything else.” Miri orders, picking up her blades though she doubts she’ll need them. “Everyone else, with me– _ go!” _

Malinde and Millianne are first out, in full worgen form, with Elanarel and Eastland just behind, and Miri bites her tongue against the misfortune of her diminished crew. If this were any other time, she would have Kyrian, or Lusselo, and both of them are gone, following the paths they chose, or the ones chosen for them.

Shaking the thoughts free, Miri vaults over the  _ Tide _ ’s deck railing, lands in Rut’theran, and bolts for the first structure, all but consumed by flame, where a desperate cry draws her ear. Throwing aside a fallen beam that looks like it had once been part of the doorway, Miri reaches into the opening it leaves behind, and a hand grabs hers.

Bracing against the stone nearby, Miri pulls, and a night elf woman in half-charred sentinel gear, burns scattered across purplish-blue skin, comes free. With no time for gentleness or ceremony, Miri yanks again until the sentinel stands, and shoves her towards the  _ Tide _ with a  _ “Go!” _ before she can protest.

“There’s more in there, but,” the sentinel chokes on her breath, “I think I’m all that’s left.”

Miri bites her lip, glances at the building, half-fallen to the flames, silent as the grave, and whips her head around, instead, to where Elanarel and Millianne are fruitlessly trying to clear burning wood from the opening of another building, and says “No time for the dead. Gotta tend to the living. Now  _ move  _ before you join them!”

It’s harsh, and hard, but Miri turns on her heel to run before she can see the response to it, and skids to a halt in between Elanarel and Millianne, whose claws are pulling at burning wood and only halfway succeeding in moving it. “Can’t get it  _ free _ ,” she growls, and Miri digs her hands in at the same place as Elanarel’s.

“On three,” she says, and tenses her ankles. “One…two… _ three!” _

With a great heaving of wood, ignoring the burning heat that reached through Miri’s leather gloves to the skin beneath, the beam came free and fell apart in their hands, sending sparks into the air as it grew thicker with smoke.

Elanarel coughs, and Millianne falls to all fours with a hacking lupine cough of her own, panting in the heat. Miri gestures away, towards the next building, the largest of the village, and says “Go! I’ll take this one.”

With an arm under Elanarel’s, Millianne helps them both move at a stumbling run towards where Eastland and Malinde are pulling several night elves and humans and worgen alike from the collapsing structure. Miri turns back to the building in front of her and darts within, coughing as heat from the flames hits her with all the force of a blade. Another cry, distinctly  _ young  _ in its tone, catches her attention immediately, and her stomach drops.

Underneath a fallen beam of wood lays a night elf woman, eyes closed, and beside her rests a bundle of cloth…with a wailing child wrapped within.

Falling to her knees in the ash and rubble, Miri lays a hand on the woman’s shoulder and her eyes flash open with a choked gasp. Unfocused, her gaze lands on Miri, and she points to the child, face streaked with soot and tears. “Please– _ please _ …save my son…”

“Let me see if I can–” Miri digs her fingers under the beam, but freezes when a hand fastens around her wrist.

“No…no time…” comes the voice, so soft Miri has to strain her ears to hear it. “Something is wrong…with the tree…”

_ Well, it’s engulfed in flames, so I can think of a few problems related to that. _ It’s on the tip of Miri’s tongue, but stating the obvious won’t help, and she knows it. Instead she leans down and says “If I just get my hands under here–”

_ “No.” _ This time the voice is more insistent, eyes glowing with the effort it takes to speak through the pain as her hand tightens around Miri’s wrist, trembling. “Please…”

Miri closes her eyes for a beat, hands still reaching under the beam that traps her, and turns to take in the village. Malinde, Millianne, and Eastland are funneling survivors to the  _ Tide  _ in a relay as Elanarel frees them, and she can see the fire from Teldrassil that tells her time is running out before she risks losing her ship.

“Tell me his name.” Miri says instead, leaning down to hear it as she carefully picks up the cloth-wrapped child, barely more than an infant.

Eyes closed, the woman says, “Syleth…Syleth Emberwing.”

_ Syleth Emberwing. _ Miri muses it under her breath. “I’ll remember it.” Rising to her feet, she hesitates, because she has never believed in Elune as her family or her people ever wanted her to, but she finds herself saying “Elune keep you,” before she turns to bolt, and does not find it misplaced.

_ “Captain, come on!” _ Elanarel yells from the dock, ducking as another piece of smoldering wood, leaves still inflamed and smoking, falls from the tree. “We have to go  _ now!” _

With a leap, Miri grabs hold of the deck’s railing with one hand, hauling herself up enough that Malinde can help haul her over while Millianne does the same for Elanarel. Landing on the deck with her arms cradling the babe who still wails in her grasp, Miri looks up at Teldrassil, and feels a great, earthy  _ groan  _ in the waves, and her stomach falls in a blink.

“Tix, get us wind! El, pull those sails and secure them–Tzu, help her. Mali, Millie–get our survivors squared away as best you can. Keep them below deck if possible, but if some have to be up here, keep them out of the way.  _ Go!” _

Her crew bolts off to carry out her command, and one of the night elf survivors–the sentinel from earlier–appears in front of Miri as she says, “I can take the child, and I will pass them to someone below deck–but I want to help you.”

“Get the kid taken care of and then we’ll talk.” Miri hands the cloth-wrapped bundle off to the sentinel, and says “His name is Syleth. Syleth Emberwing.”

The sentinel muses the name under her breath before she turns to duck below deck with the rest of those pulled from Rut’theran Village’s crumbling remains. The  _ Tide  _ heaves across the waves, pulling a turn that would have sheared most other ships in half with the force, but Miri leaps up the steps to the wheel and straightens their approach as Tixxi summons the winds to push them forward, just as a great  _ crack  _ sounds across the waves, and Miri turns in time to see Teldrassil’s core buckle, and the massive boughs begin to fall, swallowed up by ensorcelled flame.

_ “Tix!” _ Miri yells, dread turning it desperate and raw in her throat.

“Doin’ my best here, cap!” Tixxi’s hands are swirling with wind, and Miri can almost  _ see  _ the force of it hitting the sails and pulling them taut as the rest of her crew fastens them down. “But if I do anything else I’ll rip the fuckin’ mast out!”

Mind racing, Miri jerks the wheel around again. They can’t outrun the falling tree, but they can brace for its impact. “Get us distance and keep up those winds–everyone else, get below deck  _ now!” _

Elanarel and Malinde exchange only the briefest glance before Millianne is pushing them away, and it’s only with reluctance that Eastland and Tzu’jai join them. Pulling her compass out of her vest pocket, Miri holds it in a white-knuckle grip, her other hand tightening around one of her wheel’s spokes. The  _ Tide  _ slices through the waves under the winds summoned by Tixxi’s hands, and Miri adjusts their course by miniscule degrees, keeping an ear on the sounds from the falling World Tree.

When the tides heave, Miri is ready, feet planted on the deck, but she can hear the terrified screams from below deck that tell her the people she’s carrying in her hull were not. They rock upon the waves for several agonizingly long moments, and it’s only when the  _ Tide  _ is continuing on its course, headed back for the Eastern Kingdoms, that Miri straightens again, and looks behind them.

Half of Teldrassil is gone–sunk beneath the waves, or sinking fast. The other half stands, but smolders bright enough she can see it even from this distance. Below deck, the terror has turned to despair, and Miri does her best to tune out the sound of muffled sobs while her hand tightens on the wheel.

At the horizon, thunder rumbles, the sea turned blood-red from the sunset’s weak light filtering through where the storm doesn’t touch.

Even when the rain begins to fall, Miri brushes the water out of her eyes and stays. Even when night turns to day once again, and the sentinel from yesterday–named Jaelle Rainsong–comes to speak to her, she responds by rote, but she stays.

If she stays at the wheel, where a captain ought to be, she doesn’t have to confront the misery just below her feet, where her crew tend to those who survived.

Miri has never called Teldrassil home–has never called anything but her ship and her crew home–but its loss shakes some indefinable core of Miri’s being, and she decides she doesn’t care for it. Doesn’t care for  _ caring _ . About the tree, at least.

It’s three days at the captain’s wheel, whether or not Tixxi is summoning her powerful winds to speed their journey, snatching bursts of rest for a half hour or so, before Elanarel plants herself in front of Miri with a stern, tired expression on her face, and says “Enough, Miri. We’ve been following the same course for three days without adjustment–you need to sleep.”

“I need to be here, actually, in case something changes.”

_ “Actually,” _ Elanarel’s blue eyes harden, “you’ll be useless to us in this state if something  _ does  _ change. We haven’t seen any sign of pursuit, and Tixxi’s been keeping rested enough to get us wind. We’ll arrive in Stormwind within the next two days, and I know they’ll have more for us to do.  _ Sleep _ .”

It’s only with reluctance that Miri drops her compass and spyglass into Elanarel’s waiting hand, and shoves her hands in her vest’s pockets as she takes the steps below deck, poking her head into the galley.

Within, some of the refugees they pulled from Rut’theran’s rubble sit at the table where Miri’s crew, in all its forms and rotations, have taken their meals for over a thousand years. Their cheeks and eyes are hollow, shell-shocked with grief. Those who don’t sit at the table are curled up with their fellow refugees against walls and chairs, drawing what comfort they can in the presence of their fellow survivors.

Miri turns and heads for the back of the ship, where her quarters–and her bed–wait for her, but with one hand on the doorway, looking in, she stops, lets out a sigh, and turns her boots back towards the galley.

Some of them look up at her entrance before looking away in silence, and their lethargic energy settles into the room like a dense fog. Banging around in the bottom cabinets until she produces a teapot, Miri sets it on the stove’s fire, kept hot with an enchanted stone Kyrian had made for her some years ago, while she searches for the rest of her tea.

With a heavy  _ thud _ , the woven bag of tea lands on the wooden counter, and gains the attention of a few refugees. Their eyes follow her as she goes to the galley window and pushes it open, fastening it to the hook on the outer hull.

The teakettle’s burbling tells her that the water within will stay at boiling temperature until she’s ready for it, and Miri pulls mugs and tankards and even bowls from the cabinets, counting them with a critical eye as she measures with her eyes how much tea remains.

“It’ll be tight,” Miri remarks under her breath, more to herself than anything, as she measures out the usual amount, “but I  _ think  _ there’ll be enough.”

Miri’s tea is a combination of many nights and many botched attempts to create her own blend from the many she’s encountered in her years on the seas. With its hint of spice and its touch of fruit, it almost falls more into a cider than a tea, but it has no real name–it’s simply Miri’s tea, that her crew has drunk around this table for centuries.

She presses a mug into one of the refugees’ hands, and for the first time since leaving Rut’theran, sees a flicker of light in empty eyes.

It takes close to an hour for Miri to prepare enough to give to each person, and as suspected, her supplies are near-depleted, but there is noise in the decks of the  _ Silent Tide _ once again, where there had only been a miserable silence, and Miri calls it good enough.

With one last mug for herself, Miri returns to the galley and inspects those within. Jaelle Rainsong, the sentinel Miri pulled from the first burning building at Rut’theran, cradles young Syleth in her arms. She looks up at Miri’s approach and says, “Something I can do for you, Captain?”

“No.” Miri sits at the empty space next to Jaelle, holding her mug in both hands and letting the familiar smell of the tea ground her. “Just taking a break for a while.”

“I don’t know if anyone has said it, but…thank you.” Jaelle looks down at the sleeping Syleth. “We wouldn’t be alive if not for you.”

Miri shakes her head slowly. “It wasn’t any big deal. I did what anyone should’ve done.”

“Perhaps. But  _ you  _ were the one who did it.” Jaelle looks up, starlight-colored eyes boring a hole into Miri where she sits. “And don’t think I won’t say as much to the high priestess when I make my report.”

She can’t help the snort that emerges, and just barely manages not to choke on her tea. “No offense meant, but the high priestess’ opinion doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. I didn’t help these people to earn her favor–I did it because even  _ I _ couldn’t turn tail from all that and not feel something.”

Silence sits in relative comfort between the sentinel and the pirate captain, and hours later, when Elanarel comes down to search for her, she finds her captain asleep on the shoulder of a sentinel, among the people she saved, mugs of familiar-smelling tea in their hands.

* * *

Two days later, Miri sits in the office of Mathias Shaw, in the heart of SI:7, feet propped up on his desk after two failed attempts to shove her ankles down. A report is in his hands, with all the details both Miri herself and the sentinel she saved can remember, and at last he sighs.

“I should be concerned about the fact you pitched all of the supplies you were sent with–supplies we might have needed for what looks to be an inevitable war campaign–into the seas.” Shaw takes the seat at his desk, raising a brow at where Miri sits across from him, looking for all intents and purposes that she doesn’t have a care in the world, “It won’t be easy to replace them.”

“Supplies…versus the lives of at least half of Rut’theran Village’s occupants?” Miri raises a brow to match Shaw’s. “Lives which certainly can’t be replaced at all? I think I’m fine with that.”

“ _ You _ , need I remind you, are not the one in the position of making those decisions.”

“You saying I should’ve left them to die? Just sailed on by with a wave and a ‘too bad, so sad’?”

“No.” Shaw’s gaze turns hard. “Only to be mindful of the consequences of your decisions. This isn’t a game, Shadeweaver, and it isn’t one of your pirate schemes.”

“I never said it was.” Miri shoots back, and they fall into sullen silence. Glancing at the window, where overcast clouds cast shadows over Stormwind’s towers, Miri sighs and pushes herself to her feet. “Thunder’s on the horizon, Shaw,” she says, turning over her shoulder with her hand on the doorway, “and we’ll either weather the storm together, or we’ll capsize.”

“Some of your pirate wisdom?”

“Call it sailor’s wisdom, instead. Your Alliance has made an honest person out of me, after all.”

Shaw huffs and just barely refrains from openly rolling his eyes, but Miri can hear it in his voice anyway as he says, “Duly noted. You’ll be summoned when we have need of you again.”

Outside, the wind picks up enough to ruffle Miri’s short violet hair, bringing with it the smell of rain. There is no thunder, not yet, but Miri can feel its ominous promise in the glow of vengeance in the night elves’ eyes, in the rising tensions within the city that thicken the air like the smoke of the burning World Tree, and she knows the storm will break sooner rather than later.

Her footsteps take her to the docks, where she spots the  _ Tide  _ drifting at its tethering, vastly different from the other ships that call this harbor their temporary home.

She takes the steps down to the dock, and feels the storm’s currents, and knows she will have more to weather before the sunshine returns again.


End file.
